The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, wants to double the prison sentence for using or possessing a hand grenade from four to eight years. Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security approves of this proposal, AD reports.

The Ministry of Justice and Security hid the number of serious crimes committed by asylum seekers in the Netherlands by including crimes like sexual offenses, aggravated assaults, and murder and manslaughter or attempts thereto under the heading of "other" in figures released to parliament, the Telegraaf reports.

Dutch telecom provider KPN will work with controversial Chinese company Huawei for the construction of its 5G network, though a "western" company will be used for the "critical core" of this network, KPN said on Friday, NU.nl reports.

The partnership with Huawei will center around modernizing KPN's mobile network. According to the Dutch company, this collaboration is all about preparatory work and the agreement could be reversed to comply with Dutch government policy.

Gokmen T., the suspected gunman in a mass shooting in Utrecht on March 18th, assaulted a prison employee a few weeks before the attack on 24 Oktoberplein, Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security said in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the Volkskrant reports.

A majority in the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, want the number of night flights at Schiphol to be reduced. Some parties even want night flights to be scrapped completely. The Kamer will discuss aviation with Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen of Infrastructure and Water Management on Thursday, RTL Nieuws reports.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, currently has nearly 200 debates that still have to be held. New debates are added to the list almost daily. "I am a bit worried about that", Kamer president Khadija Arib said to RTL Nieuws.

Parliamentarians can request debates on topics that are in the news. "It is also an interaction between MPs and the media", Arib said. "If you request a debate, you as parliamentarian indicate that you think it is very important. A lot of debates are, of course, justified."

COC Nederland wants the Netherlands to deny entry to American preacher Steven Anderson. The LGBTQ interest group calls on State Secretary Mark Harbers of Justice and Security to ban him from entering the Netherlands, NOS reports.

More than 40 thousand people signed a petition to make paying for sex a punishable offense. Exxpose, the Christian inspired and politically independent youth movement that initiated this petition, will hand it to the Tweede Kamer this week, the Volkskrant reports.

Minister Sander Dakker for Legal Protection acknowledged in a parliamentary debate on Wednesday that he bears political responsibility for mistakes made in the treatment of Michael P., the man who raped and murdered 25-year-old Anne Faber from Utrecht in 2017. At the same time he asked parliament to trust him to also solve the problems. He survived the debate, NU.nl reports.

"I feel the responsibility in my every fiber", Dekker said. "One of my most important tasks is to protect society from people like Michael P."

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, held a moment of silence on Tuesday afternoon to commemorate the three victims killed in a shooting on 24 Oktoberplein in Utrecht on Monday. The President of the Tweede Kamer, Khadija Arib, opened Tuesday's weekly question and answer session speaking in honor of the victims in Utrecht and also the fifty people killed in a shooting at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.

The police had to remove a man from the public gallery in the Tweede Kamer on Wednesday afternoon for disrupting the parliamentary debate. The man tried to start a discussion with State Secretary Raymond Knops of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations by screaming at him from the gallery. The elderly man seemed to be confused and could barely stand on his feet, AD reports.

Not informing the Tweede Kamer about the government purchasing shares in Air France-KLM was a "judgment call", Minister Wopke Hoekstra of Finance said in a debate on the matter on Tuesday. He considered all variants of parliamentary involvement in the purchase. "Considering all the pluses and minuses, this was the most ideal, but an ideal outcome does not exist", he said, NOS reports.

A parliamentary inquiry will be done into gas extraction in Groningen. The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, unanimously supported this. According to the Kamer, it will be good for the restoration of Groningen's trust in politics if there is accountability for choices made by persons, organizations and institutions. When exactly the inquiry will start is not yet clear, but it is unlikely that it will start earlier than next year, NOS reports.

Facebook will not be able to guarantee that the company is transparent about the placement of political advertisements before the provincial states elections next month, Minister Kasja Ollongren of Home Affairs and Kingdom Relations wrote in a letter to parliament, NOS reports.

The Dutch government used old figures when calculating the average energy bill increase for this year, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Climate acknowledged to NOS after reports in AD.

The Dutch government wants airlines to share information about their passengers with the government in future. This data is necessary in the fight against "terrorism and serious crime", Minister Ferdinand Grapperhaus of Justice and Security said in a letter to the Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, AD reports.

While the majority of the opposition parties in parliament is pleased with the expansion of the children's pardon, the government parties still faced strong criticism during a parliamentary debate on the matter on Wednesday. Opposition parties are particularly dissatisfied about the decision to take in fewer recognized asylum seekers from the United Nations, NU.nl reports.

The coalition parties' talks on relaxing the children's pardon seems to be at a stalemate. After two meetings with State Secretary Mark Harbers of Justice and Security on Monday, the parliamentary leaders of the VVD, CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie still have not come to a solution. CDA, D66 and ChristenUnie want the rules on the deportation of child asylum seekers to be broadened, the VVD is refusing, NOS reports.

The Tweede Kamer, the lower house of Dutch parliament, will get some control over an emergency law for the event of a no-deal Brexit. Minister Stef Blok of Foreign Affairs is willing to make some of the amendments that parliament demanded. A large part of the Tweede Kamer called the law as it currently stands "undemocratic", NOS reports.

The Netherlands' national vaccination program works - some 450 children's lives are saved through it every year - but it is too limited. The Dutch government must include more infectious diseases in the national vaccination program, multiple vaccination experts said in advise to the Tweede Kamer, AD reports.

The Public Prosecutor is investigating a controversial sale of NS land to a real estate entrepreneur in 2014. Two people involved are suspected of non-official bribery around the deal, a spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor said to newspaper AD. The investigation is not focused on NS or ProRail, according to the newspaper.

PVV member Karen Gerbra﻿nds resigned as a parliamentarian out of disappointment about the lack of sympathy and support she received from her party after the death of her friend and fellow party member Willie Dille. Gerbrands has "never felt so alone" as in the past months in the PVV, she said in her farewell letter to the Tweede Kamer, which was presented to Kamer president Khadija Arib on Wednesday, NU.nl reports.